Brett Halliday - The Corpse That Never Was

“Do you recognize these?”

Alyce was turning the tiny slippers over and over in her hands. She looked up and Shayne caught a glint of tears in her soft brown eyes. “They… just like some Mrs. Nathan had.”

“When did you last see hers?”

“I… just couldn’t say. Hanging up in her closet… she lay them out when she wanted me to launder them.”

Shayne got to his feet. He said, “Let’s go to her room and see if hers are there.”

She nodded with downcast eyes and got up carrying the slippers. She held out her hand for the two flimsy garments as though she felt it was not quite proper for a man to be handling them, and Shayne followed her out of the library to a wide stairway leading to the second floor. It was very still inside the house as they climbed the carpeted stairway.

At the top, Alyce led the way to the front where she entered a pleasant, sunny sitting room with doors opening out on both sides of it. There was a cretonne-covered sofa and two rocking chairs near the wide window at the far end of the room; at the left of the entrance door was a gleaming rosewood desk with a matching chair in front of it.

Alyce motioned to the door on the right and said, “That is Mr. Nathan’s room.” She turned to open the door on the left and said, “I’ll go see,” closing the door behind her as though she deemed it improper for a strange man to see the interior of her dead mistress’s bedroom.

Shayne strolled across toward the window and stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray on the small table between the two rocking chairs.

Alyce came back through the bedroom door and her features were tight and strained, her lips were trembling. She said brokenly. “It must be so then, isn’t it? I didn’t… I just couldn’t… I kept thinking… I’m sorry, sir.” She tried to draw herself up stiffly, avoiding Shayne’s gaze.

He said quietly. “Then they are hers, Alyce?”

“Yes, sir. Her slippers and that same set aren’t there. You’ll have to excuse me, sir, but… it just came to me, like…”

Shayne said, “It’s all right. We had to be sure. You’ve been very helpful.” He moved to her and touched her arm gently. “Who uses this desk, Alyce?”

“That one? Mrs. Nathan. That’s where she makes out the marketing lists, does the household accounts and writes out checks to pay bills.”

Shayne said, “She did all that? Not Mr. Nathan?”

“She always said it was the duty of a lady to take care of household things.”

Besides, Shayne couldn’t help thinking to himself, it was her money she was spending. She would be one to keep a firm grip on expenditures.

He turned to the desk and pulled out the wide center drawer. A large flat checkbook lay on top of other neatly arranged papers, the kind that has three checks to the page.

He lifted it out and opened it on the desk to the final entry she had made before her death.

It was the top check on that page, dated four days previously and the stub was neatly made out to “cash,” $100.00. The balance in the account after that check was deducted was $2,962.25. Above the line for the signature on the checks themselves was the printed name, “Elsa Armbruster.” So, she hadn’t opened a joint account with her husband after they were married. Shayne wondered if he had a personal account of his own, and if so, what his balance was.

He turned the stubs backward slowly, glancing down at the three separate notations on each sheet of stubs. Elsa had been a methodical account-keeper. Each stub was dated, the payee and amount noted clearly, and the purpose of each check meticulously entered.

The entries seemed ordinary enough; dry cleaner, a florist, a doctor bill, a $50 donation to a charity. She didn’t write a great many small checks. They were all for fair-sized sums, indicating that she waited for bills to be rendered monthly.

He stopped on the third page back, his eyes glinting with excitement. The stub was dated almost exactly one month previously. The amount was $250, payable to “Max Wentworth.” Beneath the name, the single word “Retainer” appeared.

Shayne knew quite a bit about Max Wentworth, none of it very good. He straightened up with the checkbook open in front of him, a questioning scowl on his face, when he heard a car coming up the drive fast, and slow with a protesting screech of brakes beneath the porte-cochere beside his own car.

Behind him, Alyce said hurriedly, “That will be Mr. Nathan now. Maybe I’d best go down…”

Shayne said, “I’ll go with you,” and followed her, leaving the checkbook open on the rosewood desk behind him.

Paul Nathan was closing the front door behind him when they reached the foot of the stairs. He was a few years younger than the man Shayne had expected from the picture in the paper; smooth-faced with the ruddy glow of good health in his cheeks, wearing a dark suit and a neat, black bow tie. He had thinning, dark-brown hair, and he looked just about as distraught and harried as one would expect of a man who had been making funeral arrangements for an unfaithful wife who had taken her own life.

He moved toward them slowly, glancing at the maid and then to Shayne behind her with somewhat hostile curiosity, and then back to the maid again. He stopped in front of the open library door and said, “I see we have company, Alyce.”

“Yes, sir. This man, he’s from the police. You told me I was to…”

Nathan interrupted, “Of course, Alyce. I can use a drink, please.” He looked at Shayne again with lifted eyebrows. “Will you join me?”

Shayne nodded and told Alyce, “A straight brandy, if you have some on tap.” She turned toward the rear of the house and Shayne moved forward with hand outstretched. “I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this, Mr. Nathan.”

Nathan narrowed his eyes and his lips pulled away from his teeth slightly. He disregarded Shayne’s proffered hand. “You’re not from the police,” he exclaimed. “I recognize you now. You’re Michael Shayne. You… found them last night. What right have you to be here impersonating the police?”

“I simply told your maid I was a detective. She invited me in.”

“Did she invite you to go snooping around upstairs?” demanded Nathan angrily.

“I brought a nightgown of your wife’s and a pair of her bedroom slippers home with me,” Shayne told him coldly. “We went upstairs to be positive they were hers.”

Nathan’s face crumpled suddenly, and he turned his head aside, took a stumbling step into the library where he stood with his face averted.

Behind him, Shayne said in a gentler tone, “I’m doing a job, Nathan. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to, but I think we can close the case fast if you’re willing to answer a few questions.”

“Close the case?” Nathan whirled on him, his face distorted. “I thought it was closed. God in heaven! Haven’t I suffered enough?”

“There are still a few loose ends.”

“What concern are they of yours? If the police are satisfied, what possible business is it of yours?”

“I told you I’m doing a job,” Shayne reminded him inflexibly.

“Old Eli, eh?” Paul Nathan spoke bitterly. “That old buzzard! I might have known he’d stir up a stink. Can’t let his own daughter lie quietly in her grave the way she wanted. Damn his meddling old soul to hell. He tried to turn her against me from the beginning. I hope he’s satisfied now that the whole world knows what his precious daughter was.” He turned away abruptly again, stalked across the library to a deep chair and dropped into it, breathing hard.

The maid entered unobtrusively, carrying a tray. She went directly to Nathan and he took a tall highball glass from it, and she turned back to Shayne with a large snifter glass and a small amount of cognac in it.